Pages

fiction

The Route (Matchbook Lit Mag) Things Which Are Not True (The Guardian) We are in Whitby (Litro Online) I've also had work published in the following anthologies:Magic Oxygen Literary Prize 2015Willesden Herald Short Story Prize 2011The Bridport Prize 2009And in these magazines:Writer's ForumThe Orphan Leaf ReviewBrand Literary MagazineAnd long-listings / mentions here:CARVE MagazineMslexia MagazineAesthetica Short Story PrizeThe Bath Short Story PrizeBARE Fiction 2018 (this completion is currently in the process of being judged)

ExtractsFrom Things Which Are Not True, a Guardian Summer Read:

When Coral announces: “I'm just going on holiday for a
lark, really," no one reacts. A word like 'lark' is wasted on her
colleagues. She heard it last week on a TV home makeover show, and Coral wrote
it in her notebook under the heading Words To Say. In the column 'Example' she
wrote, 'I'm just doing it for a lark, really' with 'Casual, nonchalant' in the
'Delivery' section. That word 'nonchalant' has an entry all of its own earlier
in the book. It also appeared on the list Things To Be In 2007.

Coral has sung 'Summer
Holiday' A LOT throughout the morning, just to make sure everyone knows she’s
going away. When she came back from Llandudno in November they hadn't even realised
she'd been gone. This is different though. She’s also hummed ‘Viva Espania’ in
the photocopy queue.

Plus she's taken her luggage
to work, saying that she has to go straight to the airport at 5 o'clock. But
really she's not flying until tomorrow morning, so her backpack is full of
tinned food wrapped in towels to soften the edges. She didn't want to actually
pack because she's making an event of it tonight with a bottle of wine and a
week's worth of Coronation Street episodes. It made Friday, Monday and last
night quite difficult to fill but Coral knew she'd be glad of it later.

I
look out to sea and imagine what it must have been like to really see it; not
just the news footage.That wall of
something that shouldn't make a wall of anything.Mum rang and I said – don't worry, it could
never happen here, something to do with plates.There must have been little cafes like this one: so on-the-edge.Maybe there was an equivalent of me,
waiting.things Amy knows:

the coffee is making
the old people twitch
she is the youngest
manager in the whole chain
it was the sea that
made her take the job
and it was the
broken heart
when you reach a
certain age, itmatters what kind of
chair you sit on
the locals don't
like the refurb and they blame her a bit
nobody ever puts
the newspapers back in the rack
the print on the wall is of a giant coffee bean which doesn't look like a
coffee bean

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------From After The Cat, finalist in GKBC Crime Story Prize:

He hands me a piece of paper. ‘Here,’ he says, ‘your
new name.’

I
tell him I like it, and he smiles, relieved, like it’s that easy. He doesn’t
know there is a third person in the room, and you have just been given a
surname.

He
wants me to look at the name and imagine who I could be. He is young, a few
years younger than me. Has he noted the age difference, counted the years, and
thought about what they mean?

He asks how I would feel if
he called me the new name for the rest of our session. I want to tell him to
relax, that this is a formality, and outside a couple of guards are laughing at
him. That he is late in the day.

Hello

I'm Teresa - published fiction writer and professional ghostwriter. If you'd like to read some of my published short stories you'll find extracts in the 'fiction' tab. Current project here on the blog: Quotes From My Teenage Diaries. Join me as I re-read and share extracts from my earliest diaries.